2AM
by Lady Merlin
Summary: based on Anna Nalick's song, 2AM. HousexWilson Bromance, if you squint, Slash. Only if you're desperate. :D Infarction recovery-ish.


Here's a little fic, my first songfic in a danged long time, but I couldn't resist. It's HxW strong friendship bordering on slash, if you squint. So non slash likers, fear not! It's pretty neutral, and only if you're truly desperate to see slash in it (like I am) can you see the slash. xD Wasn't that a nice and confusing sentence?

Okay, disclaimers, neither House nor Wilson belong to me, (despite my deepest, darkest desires) and the song Breathe (2AM) belongs to Anna Nalick.

**2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,  
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,  
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"  
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes  
Like they have any right at all to criticize,  
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason**

House wasn't House for months after the infarction. He was the same on the outside, but different on the inside. And no one could tell, except Wilson. He spent every day with House, every spare minute. And the world saw his sporadic episodes of caustic bitchiness, but Wilson saw the silence in between.

It was difficult for him because House had been lightly funny. He had been make-fun-of-people-with-words funny. Now he was just make fun of people funny. His sense of humour became menacing, and the worst thing was that Wilson didn't mind. He understood, when no one else did, and that was why House kept him around. **  
**

The first time he spoke was fifteen days after he woke up from the anesthesia induced sleep. He opened his eyes, which had been closed despite him being awake. "Wilson," he had mumbled. "Help me up."

Wilson jumped out of his not-exactly-sleeping state and gripped Houses' hand, so tight that both their knuckles went white. It was a sign of how well House knew him that he let him, and that he gripped back.

**  
'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable  
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table  
No one can find the rewind button, girl.  
So cradle your head in your hands  
And breathe... just breathe,  
Oh breathe, just breathe**

He'd sat up, wincing in pain. All the other Heads had gathered in the observatory, and Wilson had a bad feeling about this. He kind of bent down and House gripped his shoulder, and pushed himself upright. The people in the observatory held their breaths. Silent. Wilson held on to him, as he gripped Wilson's shoulder. It was a terrifying moment when he realised he couldn't feel anything his left leg except pain.

Wilson knew something was wrong when he saw the blank look on his face. It just took one sharp look into his eyes to realise that House was in a world dominated by pain. Not for the first time, he resented Stacey. Risky and improbably as Houses' idea had been, perhaps it would have spared him this.

House limped a bit, waiting for his leg to start working again. But it didn't. It was like when your leg went to sleep, and you couldn't feel anything but pins-and-needles, and you couldn't walk, and your heart missed a beat as the pins took just an extra second to go away. But this pain didn't go away. It was a constant throbbing razor.

House pulled his arm away, gently, and everyone waited with bated breath. Wilson slowly let him go. House stood upright for a split second before he tried to walk, and fell to the ground with a sharp crack as his weight landed on his knees. He couldn't get up fast enough, not on his own. ****

May he turned 21 on the base at Fort Bliss  
"Just a day" he said down to the flask in his fist,  
"Ain't been sober, since maybe October of last year."  
Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while,  
But, my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles,  
Wanna hold him. Maybe I'll just sing about it.

It was unbelievably horrifying. House was _the_ least popular doctor in the hospital. The most egoistic bastard to ever walk the halls. Common impression had been that House being a cripple would be extremely satisfying. Maybe it would humble him, or bring him to his knees. But it didn't work. It was a horror, an atrocity against nature. House was _meant_ to be strong, and tall, and proud. A weak House simply didn't make sense.

It was one of those things, which everyone agrees on. As horrible a person as House may have been, he was one of those special things, special people. Destroying him would be something not even his worst enemy would do, because it would be a crime against everything that was right. Something that would destroy the balance that was life.

**  
Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,  
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table.  
No one can find the rewind button, boys,  
So cradle your head in your hands,  
And breathe... just breathe,  
Oh breathe, just breathe**

House had withdrawn from everything that defined him. He rarely spoke to Stacy, though he had assured her that he forgave her. It was difficult to fathom, with the way he was acting, but he truly was trying, Wilson knew. House was trying his level best to forgive Stacy, but it wasn't working. No matter what, Wilson knew that House would probably always blame her for this.

House didn't come to work for a while. That was another thing that defined him. Now the only time Wilson saw him was at his home, and that was an entirely different turf. He got to know Houses' mother and father, and more about their relationship. He understood why House never wanted to see his father.

House had never really moped, before the infarction. He had bitched and done something about whatever was bothering him, but now he moped. He didn't get up for days at a time. He stayed in his bedroom, in the dark, surviving only on the painkiller medicine that Wilson had prescribed to him; Vicodin. His once full figure became gaunt and hollow, his once sparkling blue eyes became ice cold, and no one noticed.

Work was also different. Not only for him, but for everyone. Everyone had gotten so used to moaning about Houses' bad behavior, that once it was absent the Hospital was too damn quiet. A doctor named Egbert, whom House had eternally teased, had made a practice of visiting Cuddy every Thursday night for a complaint session. One Thursday he'd walked in, and he hadn't known what to say, and neither had Cuddy, and they'd just sat there in silence. Wilson generally came to defend House halfway through these complaint sessions. He burst in, and they just stared at each other. They didn't know what to do.

**  
There's a light at each end of this tunnel,  
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out  
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again  
If you only try turning around.**

Buying Houses' cane had been a rather torturous affair. House insisted he would learn to walk again, so buying a cane would be a waste of money. But they both knew House would never recover the use of his leg. In the end, Cuddy gave them all the time off they needed, until he got himself a (quote) _damn cane_. It was one of those rare times he'd seen Cuddy truly angry, and both of them had known she'd burst into tears the moment they left.

They went to the cane shop, House in excruciating pain by the time they reached. He still staunchly denied that he needed a cane. Wilson had groaned and walked in. An old Japanese man stood inside, using a cane himself. Each cane he suggested had been blatantly denied, and verbally abused. Until something snapped. The man walked up to House, and despite standing a full head below him, towered over him. "The first step to recovery, young man, is acceptance. Accept your disability. It's not the end of the world."

House nodded, and picked out a cane in silence. Wilson had been slightly stunned, but had known that it wouldn't be the end of the matter. The moment they got home, (which was what Houses' apartment was now known as) House dropped his cane near the door and got to his bed, gripping the walls. He popped another two Vicodin, and not for the first time, Wilson wondered if this was getting out of hand.

**  
2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song  
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,  
Threatening the life it belongs to  
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd  
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud  
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to**

House managed to avoid using the cane for as long as possible, until one day, the lift had broken down and he was stuck on the fifth floor. Everyone else had taken the stairs except Wilson and him. He simply couldn't go down the stairs with his bad leg. He quickly wrapped his left hand in a strip of gauze and gripped the cane with it. Wilson stood next to him, watching. It was never as easy to use a cane as it looked, both physically and mentally. Physically it killed your hand, but mentally it was harder to finally accept a new limb. Both of them knew this.

Each step was agony.

They finally got to the first floor, and Houses' hand was swollen, but they had made it. The hospital staff stood and watched in silence as the infamous Dr. House limped his way out of the stairwell, holding onto the cane for dear life. Wilson would have killed each and every one of them to just stop them from staring. On the spot. He would have even shredded them to make House happy. They should know better than to give him sympathy.

Cuddy and his team tried their level best to distract people, but it was four against hundreds. And it was impossible to deny their own fascination with the sight. To Houses' credit, he didn't get violent. He simply looked away, and when he came to some guy who was gawking in something that looked a lot like glee, he crushed his toes with his cane.

As they got into Wilsons' car, House looked at his cane with slight amusement, as if considering all the possibilities. He later confessed that he enjoyed manipulating people who believed he was less able as a cripple. Wilson accepted that. House was an exception, but a very valid one. If he proved that he could do something, then any cripple could, and he had all the right in the world to manipulate those who couldn't accept that.****

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable,  
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table  
No one can find the rewind button now  
Sing it if you understand.  
And breathe, just breathe  
Woah breathe, just breathe,  
Oh breathe, just breathe,  
Oh breathe, just breathe.

House got better and better, in terms of coping with his disability, and also of squeezing every last drop out of it. He now ignored all strange looks, and kicked ass in terms of his diagnostic skills. Not to say he didn't kick ass before, but now he had a way of doing it that drove observers wild, until they didn't know whether to applaud the mad man, or execute him.

He never really looked the same, not really. His cheeks remained gaunt and his eyes stayed icy. Not to mention the obvious limp, but okay. He disowned all sense of professional dress code, horrifying doctors and patients alike with filthy sneakers and a blazer on a tee-shirt and jeans. He became slightly more cryptic, and very much more quiet. He rarely opened his mouth to say something nice, or share his feelings, but that was okay. He was as easy to read as a book, for Wilson at least.

But for some reason, Wilson always saw House as a positive force of the universe. He was, despite his bitchiness, more beautiful than ever, with his fascinating personality and addictive behaviour. House was shatteringly damaged, yet strangely whole in everything he did. It was like he led two different lives, as a doctor, and as a human. He would never be quite right as a human, Wilson knew this. But as a doctor he was unbelievable. And House, as weird as it sounded, was a good friend.

House calls you an idiot a thousand times and when you ask him to put his life on the line for you, he does it. For the people he loves, there are no questions asked. (credited to: _No Accounting_ by _Blackmare_ ) He would lay his life down for his friends, and somehow still make it look like he was being an asshole. Wilson kind of supposed that it was because House was already seen to be weak due to his leg, and he didn't want to seem soft, or nice, or his entire reputation would go down the drain. And it wasn't even about reputation. It was about how it helped him deal with all the crap in his life.

House, instead, had his own ways of showing affection. He would let you break open the new peanut butter jar, or let you pee first, all the while moaning in a way that was completely insincere. He would crap about stuff the whole day, but somehow spotlight the entire speech around your problems. It was a gift, Wilson was sure.

House went out of his way to be racist or sexist or ageist or whatever else he could be, just to prove he could still be normal, or mean. And it was unbelievably see through. Not for people who didn't know him, of course. But for people like Wilson, who knew him better than the back of his hand.

House was, as gay as this sounded, beautiful. House was truly beautiful. He was a paradox within an paradox, a truth to cover a lie. House was his silliest cousin, and his favourite brother. House was the bastard who would kick your ass at basket ball and laugh, but let you have the last slice of pizza. House was his best friend. And that was all that really mattered.

Note: Again, the quote "House calls you an idiot a thousand times and when you ask him to put his life on the line for you, he does it. For the people he loves, there are no questions asked." Is from _No Accounting _by _Blackmare. _Brilliant fic, people. If I took her quote, I think she deserves that much publicity. :D P.S. Dear Blackmare, if you have a problem with my blatant usage of your stuff, just let me know, 'kay?

I don't own House or Wilson. An occasional threesome would be nice, yeah, but I don't think that's gonna happen… Anyways… The first one that I've actually got out, in a while, as compared to all the bazillions I've started and left hanging. Life sucks, at the moment. But feel free to cheer me up. You know how!

Love,

Lady Merlin


End file.
